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Inclusionism, I do have my doubts about its viability as it's far too easy a term to hide behind - should every local band be included here? Of course the answer is "no", but I've seen any number of contributions at AfD which preface the opposite view with the phrase "As an inclusionist...". This is not to say that "Inclusionism" as a philosophy is inherently flawed, however. Just as
Muhammad Abdalla and Halim Rane (scholars I look up to greatly but am unlikely ever to contribute articles on at least until the latter has written a book or two) work tirelessly to distinguish "What Islam is" from "what some Muslims do", the same may be true with a distinction between "what Inclusionism is" and "what some Inclusionists do".
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didn't have time to do more than subst a template in" (as a wild aside, am I the only one who wishes the default text of a template contained the "subst" already?). If there's vandalism afoot on my watchlist or anything like that, I'll revert it as rapidly as I can. If there's only 5 minutes before I need to race out the door to catch a bus, I'll still revert the vandalism but I won't be able to leave a detailed warning with the user doing it. Sure, it's an imprecise system, but the object of the exercise is to solve the problem, tell the miscreant not to do it again and have done with it. It's all a part of being
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one policy, someone else might think he doesn't understand another one and someone else might think he's got problems with copyright. All four are valid reasons to oppose, so there's no reason not to add another one. Who knows? There might be a perfectly rational explanation for my perceived problem, which might change my opinion. It's also significantly easier to define things in terms of "that which they are not", rather than "that which they are". In other words, I don't necessarily have a firm mental picture of "a good admin", but I've definitely got one of what a bad one would look like.
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user contributed the fact that what seemed to have just been an album track was in fact released as a single and used as the theme song for a professional wrestler. This, I'm sure you'll agree, is what "opposition" is meant to be about. What we've now got is constructive improvements to the article which makes it worthwhile to have around. Heck, even if someone removes the speedy tag and adds an explanation on the Talk page I'll be happy (as long as the explanation is more than just "John is really cool and everyone in the world needs to know this").
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my userpage has been vandalised X-many times demonstrates to the would-be vandal that he or she is not unique (and reminds them of this fact when the vandalism is reverted), not the first to try it and that they are simply "vandalising", not "vandalising in an interesting way". Everything from changing a letter to make an offensive word through to blanking or rewriting the page is simply "vandalism", and thus unoriginal.
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few people opposing. Thus, unless I'm first on the scene or thereabouts, I don't see any pressing need to support for the sake of supporting. Getting 100 or 250 supports or whatever the new magic number is looks great as a trophy, but adminship isn't a trophy anyway. I didn't get 50 supports in my own RfA and, excepting a few ne'er-do-wells and an honest mistake or two, haven't trodden on anyone's toes as yet.
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then responded "woof" the next time the teacher's name was said. We, the students, all thought this was something original, but the teacher only sighed and said "By 'original', I meant 'something which has never been done before'. Making animal noises and being silly has been tried before. If you want to do something original, get your work done without me watching you."
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nominations. Someone can nominate an eminently notable subject for deletion and claim to be having a larf on April 1 and the decision as to whether the joke is funny - or even a joke - is up to the closing admin, which then makes it subjective as to whether they're told off for bad faith nominations or given a smiley face for brightening the place up.
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fully expect to do the same in future. If an article rests the notability of its subject on a source in a language I don't speak, I will accept in good faith any translation from that language to
English. Likewise, I will do my best to translate anything from German (or, in the future, any other language I happen to learn) for the same purpose.
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people associated with it as well as having been in the media for less savoury reasons. My primary school may well be notable because I seem to recall learning that some famous people went to it, but if they didn't it would need another claim to fame. If it didn't have another claim to fame, it wouldn't be worth writing an article on it.
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see whether it still "holds up in court". I freely admit to not being perfect in this aim, as is the case for everyone in the world. That said, just because I move to delete something transparently written from one side of an issue doesn't mean that I won't move the same for something just as transparently written from the other side.
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Every now and then, I check the
Newpages log. If there's a red-linked username listed as creating a page, I automatically investigate what's been written there. This is because new users frequently don't understand that themselves, their girlfriends or their micronations aren't meant to be written up
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Occasionally, and I do mean occasionally, people are tempted to engage in some jiggery-pokery about the whole issue of schools. In a way, I can understand that - it makes sense to have a vested interest in the presence of a school article if you're connected to it (having one in its absence is a bit
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relates to people trying to advertise or sell something. An article on an up-and-coming high school basketball player cannot conceivably be spam, since the young man is not in a position to sell himself or his services. Similarly, an article on an unreleased album cannot conceivably be spam, for the
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The more perceptive may notice that I have a userbox indicating how many times my userpage has been vandalised. This userbox has occasionally been interpreted by certain other users as creating a "badge of honour" for vandals (as in "Wow. Now he's over 20 because of my work"), although that is never
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It would be naive to believe that every article is written from a neutral point of view. Any project this large will naturally attract those with an axe to grind on a specific topic. As a historian in real life, my task as I see it is to remove any biases I might have from my view of the article and
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Occasionally, these standards can produce an ironic situation. An irate user contacted me recently asking why I'd deleted his neologism. He told me that many of the people with whom he's involved in pub trivia quizzes have noticed that the team with the sexual pun in its name will usually come last,
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Even were our hypothetical album to be released, it would still be a very unusual article if it were spam and not any other kind of CSD. Even the most amateurish albums recorded by your cousin's covers band in the local pub tend to have an article which talks about it in a passingly serious manner.
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That said, the overwhelming majority of RfAs I've participated in I've opposed. Why is this? It's simple. If I think a candidate would make a good admin (and there are no hard-and-fast criteria I use here), chances are I'm not the only one - there'll already be 10-20 people supporting them and very
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Totally aside from the above, I've recently found myself around the RfA area a bit and contributing to some discussions regarding prospective admins. Now, I'm one who firmly believes that adminship is no big deal, although there are some elements out there in the wider community who patently prefer
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I prefer to see it in another way. As that number climbs ever higher, each individual act of vandalism puts the perpetrator into a larger group. One only has a reputation if one is unique, the first to do something, or somehow remarkable for doing something others have already done. Indicating that
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Except in the cases of those with whom I've had a lot of contact over a prolonged period (generally via
Wikiprojects or some frequent AfD contributors), I'm afraid you'll have to accept that I don't know you from Adam. Not that this should matter a jot, since I will naturally assume that you're out
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Perhaps it's a reflection of my previous life as a law student, but I have been known to cite precedent here and there. I do this not because it's binding (it isn't), but because it reflects existing consensus. Except in situations where the proposed change to consensus is eminently absurd or there
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prefer to generate content. In the case, for example, of articles on
Eurovision entries, this may mean that a song will only get one of the categories it is meant to receive on its first "pass". This doesn't mean that I won't later retrace my steps and standardise spelling or add a new category - I
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I can perhaps be excused for laughing uproariously at this case of sour grapes, as it demonstrates that the user in question in fact had no understanding of why
Knowledge (XXG) (or seemingly any source) was valid to begin with. The exact same standards which mean that this site has an article which
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Keep a Sense of Humour: The worst thing anyone can do here is to lose their sense of humour about the entire project. What else are we meant to think when words like "Vanispamcruftisement" are accepted parts of the lexicon, other than that this is not a place which entirely takes itself seriously?
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The problem is that we have no clear-cut rules on what you can and can't do on April Fools' Day. We have a featured article from left field which is still a valid topic, which is OK. Likewise the DYKs are slightly unusual but still informative. The problem is when you realise that for a great many
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A user writes up an article on his best mate. Nice bloke, but completely and utterly deletable material. I tag it as such. The tag is removed with no added information asserting notability. Technically, it's next stop AfD because this removal (even if done by an IP) is "opposition to the article's
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The same is true of my high school. It's notable, but I strongly doubt that any of the staff there are notable. The one former staff member I thought might've been is in fact not notable, so that's an important point in itself. What's certainly not notable is the rest of school life - the sporting
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policy. That said, it's as close to an objective measurement of where to draw the line with school articles as I think exists anywhere. Therefore, if (heaven forbid) I find myself getting drawn into a good old fashioned schools debate, that will be my first port of call until someone comes up with
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do in all of this is to speedy or Prod something in a field I know nothing about. Thus, computer manufacturers, bands from San Marino and so on are safe from me (although that doesn't mean that they're safe from everyone else). I'm only after the more egregious instances of people writing articles
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This is a hit-and-miss job, since there will obviously be some blue-linked users who'll write speedyable articles. In this situation, it's a simple case of reminding myself that I'm not on New Page Patrol (as some users like to say they are), and that if someone wants to investigate the whole bang
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With candidates who I don't think would make a good admin, however, I'm more inclined to voice a negative opinion. This is because there are - as I see it - more reasons to oppose someone than there are to support them. I might think X is uncivil all the time, you might think he doesn't understand
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This isn't a case of hypocrisy or anything like that - the fault is rather with the user who assumes that the standards don't exist. If Joe Bloggs' biography were to be submitted to a printed encyclopedia, it wouldn't get published and neither should it. The fact that
Knowledge (XXG) is able to be
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Alternatively, a user writes up an article on a person or a place which doesn't seem notable and doesn't throw up anything particularly useful Google-wise. The speedy-removal is accompanied by (or closely followed by) the addition of copious quantities of information - in one recent case, another
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Just as not all schools are inherently notable, neither are all schools inherently non-notable. If I spy a poorly-written article on a school - particularly if it looks like it was written by a student there during a dull class - that's a warning flag going off in my mind. The school may still be
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they're not. What all schools are is inherently important to the community from which their population is drawn, for better or for worse. My university is notable, it's big, important and old and has a lot of important people associated with it. My high school is notable because it has two famous
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enters the article into the deletion process. As admins, we don't delete one-day-old Prods for the simple reason that that isn't how it's meant to be done. If you want to Prod something, Prod it and watchlist it. In five days or so, it'll be either gone or AfD'd (either because the admin who came
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I'm reminded of a teacher I had many years ago who had the surname "Lamb". One classmate decided to make a "baaa" noise on hearing the name one day, and did so with great enthusiasm. The teacher responded, "You only think you're the first person to do that. Try something original", so the student
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If I warn you for doing something with a generic template, try not to take it personally. While I'd like it to mean "stop acting like a new user and behave as if you have a passing familiarity with the way we work here", nine times out of ten it will simply mean "I was first on the scene here but
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defer to those with superior knowledge should it come up for deletion. If none such is forthcoming, I will make a good-faith attempt to establish the truth of the matter myself. I have in the past used my German abilities and what little I know about Arabic in deletion debates and proposals and I
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If that doesn't make any sense, think of it this way. The
President of the USA is notable because he won an election (or two elections) and leads a very powerful country, is responsible for this that and the other thing and so on. What he ate for breakfast, however, is not notable even though it
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of my lecturers are notable. Neither does it mean that the buildings they teach in are automatically notable, nor does it mean that the other pieces of university life are automatically notable. They may well be, but they can't ride on the coat-tails of a notable lecturer lecturing at a notable
226:, I stress, saying "Buy our album"), then the subjects of a great many articles are trying to sell themselves as well. I will admit that on occasion I've sought out an album which is listed in an artist's discography here, but that is quite a different thing to a naked attempt to sell anything.
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No offence to those who like it, but this is one of the things that drives me bananas when I see it. Why is the phrase "I'm taking a wikibreak" or "I'm taking a wikivacation" in any way superior to "I'm taking a break" or "I'm taking a vacation" (aside from any
American-English aesthetic value
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Thus, we see a spike in silly AfD nominations (of articles on
Knowledge (XXG), Pluto, Jimmy Wales and others) and people being funny in their comments about those nominations. Again, nothing wrong with it in the abstract, but it just opens the door a crack further for people to make bad faith
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Of course, just because a school is notable doesn't mean that everything which goes on there is notable. My university is notable and at least two of the lecturers who I've been fortunate enough to study under are (there may well be another two or three who are, but I haven't yet checked that
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Those who subscribe to any "-ism" in relation to Knowledge (XXG) are welcome to do so, but I personally find them counterproductive. If an article is worthy of inclusion, it's worthy of inclusion on its own merits and not because some grand overarching theory says it should be. In the case of
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In other words, I only view a deletion as "controversial" when and if there's a real controversy about it. Other users have pointed out that painters from Niger may well not have much of a web presence but have masses of books written about them. If this is the case, then I'd expect that any
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derived from the verb "to take" turning up here)? The simple answer is that it isn't superior at all. Thus, you're never going to see me talking about a "wikipolicy" or a "wikibreak" or even a "wikitrout" (as one enterprising user suggests another should be hit on the head with
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It's never going to be a major issue, but what it serves to do is to make the important process of weeding the articles out which shouldn't be here in the first place just that little bit less objective. I'm not convinced it's a good thing to have that happening.
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here for the same reason that I am - building this wonderful resource into something even better than it currently is. Of course, the flipside is that if you're doing the wrong thing I'll let you know straight off the bat, regardless of how many edits you have.
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deletion". Sure, in a purely technical sense it is, but it's hardly opposition in the sense of constructive improvements to the article. The bloke remains as thoroughly non-notable as he was the first time the article was edited. To me, this is a case of
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As an admin, I'm frequently asked about why I deleted X page. The simple reason is this: "Knowledge (XXG) is an encyclopedia. As an encyclopedia, it has particular standards governing content. The page I deleted did not live up to those standards".
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something better. I don't intend to get into a schools debate too often, for the simple reason that the proposal is flawed and leaves all comers open to a series of unanswerable circular arguments. Even the best of us have our weaknesses, though.
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If we were to take the view that the thing under discussion is being discussed purely to drum up sales, we would be embarking upon a very dangerous quest indeed. If your band is automatically trying to sell its album by writing about it (but
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For one thing, the overwhelming majority of Prods are made because a CSD category simply doesn't fit the article (there is no CSD category which says "this article is a recipe", for example, so it gets Prod'ed). For another, the Prod-tagging
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Thus, every now and then I will contribute to a debate with a pun or an otherwise joking comment. This doesn't mean that I don't take the deletion of an article seriously, just that I don't view it as a matter of life and death.
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coming into play. Process says that we AfD this, which takes time and gums up the works until someone realises that it was a speedy all along. Process is important, and never let it be said that I claim otherwise. What process
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so therefore this was something which should be included in Knowledge (XXG). Upon being told that the "law" was not notable, he responded that he will no longer recommend Knowledge (XXG) as a source for answers in his quizzes.
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Apparently, anything contested (even at Speedy level) should be taken as being a "controversial deletion" and go straight to AfD. For myself, I find this to be exceptionally pedantic. Consider the following two examples:
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previously-speedy-tagged article on such a painter would have these books added. Just removing a tag because the painter's a friend of yours and is going to be big one day is not the creation of controversy.
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I can't speak for all admins by any means, but when I see an article both CSD-tagged and Prod-tagged, I wait for the Prod to expire. When I see an expired-Prod with a CSD riding shotgun, I just get irritated.
336:). Just as the code that these pages are written in is almost plain English compared to an awful lot of programming languages, so too will I speak plain English when I type in it.
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notable, but if it doesn't make any assertion thereof in the article then it's potentially speedy-time. If I see an article which does assert notability, that's enough for me.
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appears to be a lack of knowledge on what the consensus was, I'm anything but wedded to what went before. The citation, however, is designed to make certain that everyone is
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and its many children. The first thing to say about this proposal is that it's precisely that - a proposal. It's not policy and in its current state I don't think it will
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Similarly, a topic which is perhaps of borderline notability can be nominated and viewed as a joke by all concerned, despite the seriousness of the nomination.
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Let me preface this section by saying that I do in fact have a sense of humour and I'm not some kind of curmudgeon out to destroy innocent fun on April 1.
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Closely allied to that is the bad habit many users - newer ones, I'll grant - have of calling the place "Wiki" as if this is a useful shortening. This is
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provides the answer in your next trivia quiz are the same ones at work to make certain that your neologism is not included until it becomes notable.
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weirder, but the internet throws these things up every now and again). Just as long as any argument is in fact based in policy, I'll be happy.
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in editing - I like to imagine that I'm the only one who's seen the personal attack or the vandalism or whatever. That way it spurs me to act.
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Wiki, but far from the only one in existence (I've personally used and contributed to at least 4 others that I can think of immediately).
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relates to him. Indeed, what he ate for breakfast is probably as verifiable as an article saying "This is a game played by students at ".
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other processes here, April 1 is the same as March 31 or April 2 - it's just another day in the 365 which make up a given year.
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Knowledge (XXG) is an encyclopedia. This might sound self-evident, but it's the point from which everything else I do proceeds.
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here. If it qualifies for a speedy, it gets listed as such. If it still looks fishy but not speedy material, it gets a Prod.
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have every intention of doing both - it just means that the primary focus will be on getting rid of those pesky red-links.
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A quick word on the habit that some people have of attaching CSD tags to Prod-tagged articles: Will ya stop already?
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If the subject of an article comes from a country, culture or time that I know nothing about, I will
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of what went before. We need to know exactly which giants' shoulders we're standing on.
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written by everyone in the world doesn't mean that it's everyone's personal website.
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upon it felt it should, or you maintain after some edits that it should).
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deal and adopt a counterproductive attitude purely to push their agendas.
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thoroughly enough) as well. That doesn't mean, however, that
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simple reason that one cannot purchase an unreleased item.
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My Thoroughly Unscientific Method for Speedies and Prods
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the creation of controversy is mindless bureaucracy.
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Let's make this very clear - "spam" as a CSD heading
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Ethnocentrism and Political Debates versus Neutrality
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teams, the unofficial clubs we formed and the like.
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